PENNE, Italy – Rescue workers on skis reached a four-star spa hotel buried by an avalanche in earthquake-stricken region of central Italy Thursday, reporting no signs of life as they searched for around 30 people believed trapped inside. Three bodies were recovered as heavy vehicles struggled to get to the scene.
Guests at the three-story Hotel Rigopiano in the central Abruzzo region alerted emergency workers of the disaster on Wednesday, following a series of quakes in the region.
READ MORE: 4 strong earthquakes hit snowbound central Italy, 1 dead
“Help, we’re dying of cold,” one couple wrote rescuers, according to the ANSA news agency. Another man, identified by news reports as Fabio Salzetta, sent a SMS message saying he had escaped with a maintenance worker, but that others were trapped inside.
Corriere della Sera quoted the text message as saying: “Some walls were knocked down.” And: “I’m outside with a maintenance worker but you can’t see anything of the hotel, there’s only a wall of snow in front of me.”
WATCH: Italian hotel buried by avalanche after series of earthquakes. Jeff Semple reports.
Giampiero Parete, a chef vacationing at the hotel, called his boss when the avalanche struck, begging for him to mobilize rescue crews because his wife Adriana and two children, Ludovica and Gianfilippo, were trapped inside, employer Quintino Marcella told The Associated Press.
Parete had left briefly to get some medicine for his wife, and survived as a result. When rescuers on skis arrived in the early morning hours of Thursday, they found just two people alive: Parete and another guest, Fabio Salzetta. There were no other signs of life, according to a video of the interior shot by rescue crews.
WATCH: Video shows interior of hotel hit by avalanche in Italy
Global Affairs Canada said it was closely monitoring the situation in Italy and urged Canadians traveling in Italy to contact consular services if they are in need of help.
“Our consular officials in Rome are in contact with the Italian Civil Protection Agency in order to determine if Canadian citizens have been affected and stand ready to provide consular assistance,” a spokesperson told Global News.
READ MORE: Over 22,000 people living in shelters after Italy earthquakes
It wasn’t immediately clear which if any of the quakes triggered the avalanche. But firefighters said the sheer violence of the snow slide uprooted trees in its wake and wiped out parts of the hotel, leaving only some structures standing and others down the mountainside.
When rescuers on skis arrived in the early morning hours of Thursday, they found just two people alive, according to news reports. Civil protection authorities said that 30 people were missing. The ANSA news agency quoted a rescuer as saying that there were fatalities, but details weren’t immediately available.
WATCH: Rescuers struggle to reach avalanche hit hotel
One of those saved was 38-year-old Giampaolo Parete, who told rescuers he had gone outside to get something from the car, which was untouched by the avalanche, but that his wife and two children were buried inside, the news agency ANSA reported.
Rescue efforts were hampered by the large snowfall in recent days, making it difficult to clear roads for heavy vehicles and ambulances to get through.
The buried hotel was just one of several rescues underway in an area that has been pummeled by more than a meter (three feet) of snow in recent days – storms that have knocked out power and phone lines and blocked roads, isolating towns and hamlets.
WATCH: Italian emergency crews pull man from home hit by avalanche
Video footage from Italian financial police force GDF showed a grey-haired man being led to safety by rescuers through a path dug out of deep snow from another rescue in the region.
Snow continued to fall throughout the region, with reports of people being isolated in many places. A resident of a town in the province of Teramo, Daiana Nguyen, told SKY TG24 that three meters (about 10 feet) of snow had fallen and that people “were completely isolated.”
READ MORE: 4 strong earthquakes hit snowbound central Italy, 1 dead
The timing of the avalanche Wednesday and the messages remained unclear, but the hotel posted a notice on its Facebook page that its phones were down around 9 a.m. following the first of Wednesday’s quakes, including one with a 5.7 magnitude. It wasn’t immediately clear if the temblors triggered the avalanche.
Video shot by rescue teams showed huge piles of filthy snow and debris piled up inside corridors, stairwells and an indoor pool area, having slammed through the outer walls of the building. The audio is silent. The largest wall of snow shown was in the pool area, where plastic lounge chairs were flipped on their sides and Christmas decorations still dangled from the ceiling.
The bar area appeared flooded, with nearby cracked skylights covered with snow outside.
Aerial video shot by helicopter crews showed rescue workers on top of the snow-covered hotel, digging holes down to try to get in.
The civil protection agency said that they were working to get rescue vehicles to Hotel Rigopiano through roads covered in snow, joining initial rescue efforts overnight by alpine rescue teams who went in on skis.
READ MORE: Why does Italy get earthquakes?
The hotel is about 45 kilometres from the coastal city of Pescara, at an altitude of about 1,200 metres.
An ambulance was blocked about nine kilometres from the hotel, according to SKY, which also said that snowfall was so heavy that snow plows have had trouble clearing the road to the hotel.
The mountainous region of central Italy has been struck by a series of quakes since August that destroyed historic centres in dozens of towns and hamlets. A deadly quake in August killed nearly 300, while no one died in the strong aftershocks in October largely because population centres had already been evacuated. In the meantime, the entire region has been hit by freezing weather and buffeted by snowstorms, piling more suffering on to the hard-hit population.
People left homeless by the earlier quakes had been moved to hotels in the region, but it wasn’t immediately clear if any of them were staying at Hotel Rigopiano, which is located in the Gran Sasso National Park.
READ MORE: Italy shaken by 6.6 magnitude earthquake; worst quake in 35 years
On Tuesday, the hotel posted photos of the recent snowfall, calling it “a dream Tuesday. Snow is giving us spectacular scenes.” It advised guests that roads were still passable but snow tires were required with chains for cars. In the hours since the report of the avalanche, Facebook users have been posting messages on the hotel’s page seeking information about the hotel.
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